Jaguars Baseball Rebounds from Tuesday's Debacle with 4-3 Extra-Inning Win at Browerville/Eagle Valley ** Seeded #1 in Sub-Section 5A-West

The Jaguars baseball team won their 12th game of the season tonight at Browerville with an exciting 4-3 win over the Broncos (4-3 Prairie, 6-5), who had defeated Royalton by a 6-5 score on May 8th. They are a good team, so this was a quality win.

Game highlights from Browerville: Austin Kampsen hit a fielder's choice to bring in Jordan Beier for the game-winning run in the top of the eighth inning. Tyler Cebulla launched a two-run home run in the 2nd inning. Josh Roelike fired seven K's against only one walk over the final five innings to earn the pitcher's win in relief.

They host Kimball at Elrosa on Friday at 5:00 in their final Central Minnesota Conference game of the season.

Fresh and exciting update at 9:30 Thursday night: The Jaguars have been seeded #1 for the upcoming sub-section playoffs. After a first-round bye, they will open the Sub-Section 5A-West quarterfinals with a home game at Saints Field on Friday May 23 at 5:00. The opponent will be the winner of the Holdingford vs. Osakis game, held May 22.

This is the first time since 1995 that the Jaguars baseball team has been seeded number one. In fact, those are the only times in the history of B-B-E has any fastpitch or baseball team been ranked #1 for playoffs.

It is a special achievement, and now they need to show it and make noise in Section 5A as the month of May wraps up.

I didn't get a complete version of the seedings, but here's what I know for sure:

#9- Holdingford
#8- Osakis

#2- Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City
#1- B-B-E

Other baseball scores from tonight:
Montevideo 10, Minnewaska Area 8
Paynesville 8, Melrose 7
Sauk Centre 3, New London-Spicer 2 (8 innings, won by a squeeze bunt)
Pierz 5, Maple Lake 3 (Pierz locks up their third straight CMC title, with their only losses in league play coming from our Jaguars)

Fastpitch scores:
NL-S 7, Albany 4 (NLS is 6-9, Albany is 8-8)

Pierz 3, Mora 2
The Pioneers waited until playoffs to pick up their 4th win of the season, as they delivered a huge upset to the 2nd-seeded Mustangs in the Sub-Section 2A-16 quarterfinals. They are now 4-13 going into the semi-finals next Tuesday.

Kimball 7, Eden Valley-Watkins 5
The Cubs (9-8) made it 3-0 this season against the Eagles in a 7-against-10 seed playoff opener for Sub-Section 5A-West. Kimball now travels to Osakis (11-3) on Friday to face the 2nd-seeded Silverstreaks. Eden Valley-Watkins finishes the season 2-13 overall, and 2-12 in the CMC (last place).

It would be simply delighting to see the Cubs upset Osakis, and I think they can do it. The Silverstreaks went 11-1 in the Prairie Conference to earn sole possession of the conference title. They were defeated by Sauk Centre (10-0 score!) and Minnewaska Area (7-3 score) in non-conference play. I feel they had no business getting a #2 ranking in sub-sections, but it does give our Jaguars a chip on their shoulders if we get a chance to play them next Tuesday in the semi-finals. They can't look past Holdingford, though, in tomorrow's playoff opener.

**On Friday at 5:00 the Jaguars Fastpitch team enters postseason play when they host Holdingford (7-7 CMC, 8-9 overall)in the Sub-Section 5A-West quarterfinals. The Jaguars take an 11-5 record into the playoffs, as well as a four-game winning streak.

Their 11 wins is the most in regular season play since 1997, when they took a 14-6 record into Sub-Section 6A-22. A record of 14-6 is the B-B-E school record for regular season fastpitch wins. It should also be noted that four regular season games that I feel they would have easily won (Browerville, Osakis, Upsala, NL-S) were scrubbed due to weather. Another viewpoint is that the odd spring weather robbed them of a 15-5 or even a 13-7 regular season record. (A 15-5 mark would have set a new school record) Either way, the 11 wins is a great accomplishment in regular season play, especially with a tough 14-game CMC schedule in which they went 10-4 (2nd place).

The Jaguars fastpitch team was 10-8 (7-7 CMC) in 2006 before finishing 11-9 overall after playoffs. They were 7-11 (5-9 CMC) in 2007 before finishing 10-13 after an exciting sub-section finals berth (the first since 2000). I look forward to another enjoyable playoff run. Central Minnesota Conference kingpin Maple Lake (17-1, #4 ranking in the coaches poll) will be the Jaguars' biggest obstacle in the sub-section and section. They need to win the 1st and 2nd-round games in order to get to Section 5A playoffs on May 27th & May 29th.

Also on Friday, the Jaguars boys and girls golf teams open Sub-Section 5A-North playoffs at the Benson Golf Course. The meet begins at 9:00. Both squads have excellent chances of advancing players to the Section 5A meet, which will be held next Friday (May 23) at the Little Crow Golf Club at NL-S.

If you go back to where I wrote about the Kimball-Eden Valley fastpitch playoff game tonight, you'll notice that Eden Valley-Watkins finished their fastpitch season with a 2-13 record, including being at the bottom of the final CMC standings. While it must be stated that their girls basketball program is one of the elite programs in central Minnesota, and their volleyball team was also pretty solid last fall... the following is very noteworthy: Our Jaguars went to state in volleyball (27-5 record), they were 10-14 in girls tennis for the best record in B-B-E history (EV-W has no girls tennis program), they were 18-10 in girls basketball (2nd best in B-B-E history, and 9-5 CMC, best ever in that conference), and now they are 11-5 in fastpitch going into playoffs ranked #3 in the sub-section (also going 10-4 CMC, best ever in that league). My point is that these four girls teams at B-B-E are all very good, spread out through 3 seasons of the school year. Key players on the fall teams (volleyball, tennis) also make up the core of the basketball and fastpitch teams. They are a very talented group of players who have set a new benchmark at B-B-E, with all four teams coming up with double-digits in the win column for the first time in school history. It's quite remarkable when you think about it. We should be most thankful that these student-athletes are in 3 sports, and not just 2 as some talented athletes are at other schools like Eden Valley-Watkins. That creates the foundation for competitive teams throughout the entire school year.

(I forgot to mention... the Jaguars girls golf team finishing 2nd in a tough CMC race, also noteworthy as well)

While we'd love having the success of the girls basketball at Eden Valley-Watkins, I know they say the same thing about our volleyball program. (Just think, though, the students that make up the Jaguars volleyball program right now believe that what we've done in the past few seasons is not good enough! They're working hard to get to the level where they can win state tournament volleyball matches.) Quite the work ethic if you ask me.

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